Vanishing Of The Light
by SignsOfSun
Summary: With every choice in this dark journey comes the risk of sacrifice. But the choices are made and the road back is a race against time.


Title: Vanishing Of The Light

Author: Signs Of Sun

Note: Howdy there! For anyone reading it the next chapter of _Hunter's Crossing _should be up over the weekend. As for this fic, it started out as a one shot I wanted to jot down and save for later. Then somewhere along the way it got long and I got the idea to put it out as a prologue for a potentially longer fic. Thought I'd throw it out there to see if there was any interest in that. The POV at least here in the opening is John's.

Unfortunately, my ideas are endless but my time is not so often I am forced to choose. And since that's like choosing amongst your children I offer a vote to the readers. So many times I throw a few things out and see which ones people would like to see the most. Since I like them all I'm happy to write any of them.

So to make a long story slightly shorter. This is either a short multi parter or a prologue to a longer series fic. At the very least the shorter multi parter. Feel free to voice preferences either way.

_SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS_

_Vanishing Of The Light_

My boys are gone. Vanished. And I don't know if I'll ever see them again. My mind reels from the thought that begs for reassurance, _will my eyes ever look upon their faces again?_ My heart clenches in on itself when its companion question follows quickly, _if my boys are ever in my sight again will there be life left their eyes?_

We were reunited for so briefly this last time around, joining forces only when our quest showed promise of resolution. Then the knowledge that if we stayed together it could have consequences sent us off into separation again. Me, solo once again and Dean partnered with his younger brother.

Only now do I realize that the consequences may in fact be greater if we were not a team, the three of us together.

Dean always answers his phone. I always hear his brick wall, full of life voice on the other end of the line, never the quieter colorless version that I suspect now resides on his voice mail message. And on the rarest of occasions when it's not my eldest's voice that answers then it's Sam's.

But now I've dialed the number hundreds of times and for days on end and nothing. Only the infuriating automated voice that tells the tale that my son's phone is either out of service or out of calling area.

I've resorted to dialing Sam's phone almost as many times and even somewhere in my clouded thinking attempted to call both numbers from two different pay phones, rationalizing that maybe it was my end with the lack of connection.

But I know better. For a just a breath I even allowed myself the hopeful thought that maybe their phones had been lost somewhere along the way.

But my eldest….he would have contacted me by now. He would have found a way.

And my heart knows it's not as simple as that. Even though I so desperately wish it could be.

I've set in motion the support network. The long chain of friends and fellow fighters of this darkness that may be now my only chance of finding my boys. First it was a call to Mike, an ex cop with a grudge against the system and a few demons of his own, who only needs a computer to track down the smallest record out there that notes a recent mention of someone, a tall dark haired John Doe treated at a hospital or a name at a motel recorded as Kris Warren or Hector Aframian or the long list of other fake names, who could potentially be Sam or Dean. He searches for the Impala along the way too, even if the boys and the car are no longer together at least it's the beginning of the trail and that's more than I've got now. I'd been watching them from afar off and on over the months, but now…now they are simply vanished.

Three weeks, two days, and five hours since I last heard their voices.

It's too long.

In that time they could have traveled from one coast to the other and back.

Too many miles. Too many miles of shadows that could have taken them from me.

And worse yet I don't even know where they were all those weeks ago. On the phone Dean had said they had worked a job in Michigan. The word _had_ tortures me now. He didn't say they were still there and I didn't ask. I should have asked. I should have done something, gotten coordinates of where exactly they had been and where precisely they intended to go.

But I didn't. I was too submerged in the dark depths of my own mission. Too far gone to see.

And now…my boys….they're gone too.

And the search area is endless.

Next on the call list is Bobby who sends out the message over the airwaves, using his CB and ham radio expertise to communicate with the others out there. To most ears his words are tame and chit chatty, but to those who have knowledge of the shadows in this world the emergency message is instantly deciphered.

He requests information from anyone who might know of the whereabouts of my boys. _Be on the lookout and assist if you can_ is the chaser at the end of the message buried in coded words that are verbalized so much more mundane.

From there, I barrel down the list, feeling like my fingers can't dial fast enough and my voice won't speak concisely, fluidly. I'm working against the clock now and not just what the passage every minute could mean for Sam and Dean, but also I'm fighting another urgency. Even carrying the knowledge that they are both skilled in the hunt the terror is seeping outward in me, threatening to take over. I need to think before I act if I'm going to get my sons back and if the fear saturates my entire mind I know I'll be no help to them. I will navigate only by my need to see their faces again and not by rational thought. The cost of that could be far too high.

I struggle to focus even though logic is wrestling to escape from my grasp.

I don't think the journal is a lead. I don't think they were following something from my scribblings and that led to their disappearance. But it needs to be double checked and with another call to Bobby I know others have been dispersed either physically or via computer to scout out the few locales that are viable possibilities.

God, I need to find my boys.

With each passing minute my orderly and hopefully effective line of thought is further diverted by flashes of potential scenarios coming to mind, one after the other like bullets to the heart. There is so much that could go wrong and so very little that ever seems to go right.

Whose to say they aren't lying seriously damaged in some abandoned building out there where they battled some evil piece of scum and lost? Whose to say they haven't been taken as leverage by some demented son of a bitch? Whose to say they aren't already d….

I banish the thought and replace it with a string of more self reprimanding ones. Ones that seep into my mind as if they are echoes traveling up from what beats inside my chest.

_We should have stayed together._

_Dammit, we should have stayed together._

_What have I done?_

_What has my blindness taken away?_

_Those boys are my only light left in this darkness and they are vanished._

_To Be Continued……_


End file.
